Tuesday, 28 July 2009

Letters from me on Norwich North in today's Guardian/Indy

We have had to combat this idea making the rounds in some of the press that "the Greens weredisappointed" with our Norwich North result. Well, obviously we weredisappointed, in that we'd rather have won, etc; but it was nevertheless easily our best by-electionresult ever:

Your leader (The message from Norwich North, 25 July) confuses thecity of Norwich with the constituency of Norwich North. The Greens arevery strong in Norwich. However, two-thirds of Norwich North wasoutside of the city in the Broadlands suburbs, where we havecomparatively little presence. Norwich North was our best nationalbyelection result ever. It's clear that the byelection was anotherboost for ourselves and Ukip, and another bad day for the "big three"parties in Westminster. Even the Conservatives lost 2,000 votes,compared to their result in 2005.

Your leading article "A by-election that obscures as much as itreveals" (25 July) said that the Green Party doubled its vote inNorwich North. In fact, we more than tripled our vote share from 2005,and it was our best national by-election ever. This was despitetwo-thirds of Norwich North being outside the city (where we are verystrong, and the opposition group on the council), in the Broadlandssuburbs. What is clear from Norwich North is that the by-election wasa boost for ourselves and UKIP, and another bad result for the "bigthree" parties in Westminister.

1 Comments:

People who are not political insiders with good local knowledge are unlikely to understand the context of a contest like this one, in Norwich North. The thing that people keep missing is that we got just 2.7% in Norwich North at the last General Election. And that we still have no City Councillors at all in Norwich North. And that we have (or, had until July) no presence at all on the ground outside the City part of Norwich North. And that only a quarter of those who voted on July 23rd come from the City part of the constituency. Given factors such as these, our result was very creditable, and a great platform to build on. To find out more about how nevertheless I think we should have done better in Norwich North, goto: http://rupertjason.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/norwich-north-some-reflections/

We have had to combat this idea making the rounds in some of the press that "the Greens weredisappointed" with our Norwich North result. Well, obviously we weredisappointed, in that we'd rather have won, etc; but it was nevertheless easily our best by-electionresult ever:

Your leader (The message from Norwich North, 25 July) confuses thecity of Norwich with the constituency of Norwich North. The Greens arevery strong in Norwich. However, two-thirds of Norwich North wasoutside of the city in the Broadlands suburbs, where we havecomparatively little presence. Norwich North was our best nationalbyelection result ever. It's clear that the byelection was anotherboost for ourselves and Ukip, and another bad day for the "big three"parties in Westminster. Even the Conservatives lost 2,000 votes,compared to their result in 2005.

Your leading article "A by-election that obscures as much as itreveals" (25 July) said that the Green Party doubled its vote inNorwich North. In fact, we more than tripled our vote share from 2005,and it was our best national by-election ever. This was despitetwo-thirds of Norwich North being outside the city (where we are verystrong, and the opposition group on the council), in the Broadlandssuburbs. What is clear from Norwich North is that the by-election wasa boost for ourselves and UKIP, and another bad result for the "bigthree" parties in Westminister.